Independent video ads, which are automatically played on the article page, are becoming more and more popular among advertisers. This format is a way to replace the scarce and expensive streaming video insertion, just like the advertisement played before the video.
However, some buyers worry that they can not always accurately understand the effect of the independent video ads they put in. They are particularly worried that their video ads will continue to play when they are invisible, and these invisible plays will be included in the completion rate of the ads. This becomes a kind of interference indicator, which interferes with the effectiveness of brand advertisers, especially monitoring agencies, in evaluating an advertisement.
Recently, an advertiser bought such ads from several independent video advertising providers running on mobile networks. He found that in some cases, the completion rate of these ads exceeded their viewing rate. From this, the advertiser found that even if the user is not watching the video advertisement, the advertisement is still playing, and this playing will be included in the viewing rate of the advertisement. Although this has damaged the standard of the advertiser to evaluate the advertisement performance according to the completion rate of the advertisement, this conclusion does not surprise the industry.
"We know that the advertisement is likely to be completed, but it is not watched by others, but played by ourselves. There is no doubt about that." Daniel Macdonald, Vice President of Xaxis Investment and Cooperation, said.
"We never do any such independent video ads for our customers, because we know that there is such a problem. But we can not necessarily prove this, and it is difficult to prove this," said Justin Scarborough, media director of PMG.
Generally, advertisers judge whether their independent video ads are broadcasted out of sight by looking at their performance indicators and their effects. For example, if a launch has a high completion rate, but does not play a role in improving brand awareness or brand reputation, it is likely that these advertisements are broadcast outside the horizon. Adam Heimlich managed the program trading department of Horizon Media before leaving to join Gale Partners, a consulting firm, as the vice president of Media last year. He has done at least 12 brand promotion studies for independent video advertising activities. He said: "I have never seen the brand increase with the increase of completion rate."
Comparing the completion rate and viewing rate is another method to evaluate whether such video ads are played out of sight. According to the visual criteria for video ads of the Media Rating Committee, once a video ad is broadcast for at least 2 seconds, it will be considered as a viewing impression, and at least 50% of people are watching it. If the completion rate of an advertisement is higher than the viewing rate, it is likely that it will not be viewed, but will be automatically played when it is invisible.
The advertiser mentioned above has 10042 views in Tead, with a completion rate of 59%, but only 37%. The number of views on Shareway is 4685, the completion rate is 71%, and the viewing rate is 48%. Similarly, the completion rate they saw exceeded the viewing rate of advertisements purchased through Unruly, but Unruly could only give 171 views, which was very small. Advertisers also broadcast advertisements through YYELDMO, but the advertisers' DSP cannot measure the viewing rate.
Teads confirmed that advertisements run through its "view to start" player continue to play after they are no longer viewed, although they only start to play after the user enters the view. According to Jim Daily, President of Tead, in 2018, the company's viewing launch received 9.7 billion people's views, and the average time for advertising was 11.27 seconds. Unruly did not respond.
Dan Greenberg, CEO of Shareway, wrote: "Our core business is native video advertising, and our default player is to pause when we can't see it. We recently launched an independent advertising product, and we strongly encourage buyers to pause their video advertising when they can't see it, and set their customers' expectations for video completion rate accordingly. For independent advertising, buyers tend to have higher completion rate rather than pause, but we hope and believe that the pause will Become the standard of the future. Before that, our customers asked us to give them choices and support these two models, so we did this. “
"When the video is not visible, we stop playing it," said Jeremy Steinberg, chief closing officer of Yieldmo.
To be clear, advertisers do not have to avoid external video advertising. Macdonald said that for Xaxis customers, 10% - 20% of their budget spent on digital video will be used for independent video advertising. However, he believes that for those customers who are interested in such advertisements, it is of an experimental nature, because they are more interested in native advertisements, or have heard a lot of news about companies such as Teads and Shareway in industry activities, and they are willing to take some budgets to try to see the effect.
In fact, advertisers can ensure that they will not pay for video ads that are broadcast out of sight. XAxis adheres to GroupM's viewing standard, that is, 50% of advertisements must be played before they can be considered as watched. If the viewing is below this threshold, XAxis will bear the risk of not charging customers. Through Teads, advertisers can choose to play advertisements through their players. When the viewing rate of advertisements is lower than 50%, the player will suspend advertisements. In this case, advertisers only charge for the whole part of the viewing.
However, when advertisers buy independent video ads, this format is not very popular. Advertisers usually buy it to enrich video transactions, rather than buying such products on media platforms. "It has become an icing on the cake part of the overall plan given by the partner. No one will say that this is the type of advertisement I want, because its performance is average." Said Albert Thompson, Managing Director of Walton Isaacson Digital.
For general video ads, Thompson expects the click through rate to be between 0.75% and 1.0%, but for independent video ads, the click through rate is usually about 0.2%. "This is very low. For example, wow, we could have made a banner advertisement, but the effect might be better." He said.
In addition to the completion and performance problems that cannot be seen, there are also such considerations: forcing those who are not interested in watching videos to watch advertisements is a bad user experience. Macdonald said: "As far as the current situation is concerned, I don't know whether this will become an important part of our video advertising. This is not only because of the lack of viewing rate and completion rate, but also because of the consumer experience."